Thursday, 14 April 2011

Microteaches #2: Easter Blitherings

Term ended on Friday. I could (should?) have gone down the pub and faceplanted into a pint or eight, but even that was too much hard work, so I sat in the garden, had two margaritas then decamped to Nando's.

It's been revision for the A-level students this week, so I didn't get much relaxation over the weekend, but yesterday was officially the first day of my holidays. My intellectual capacity deteriorated so much since I left college on Tuesday, that I wrote 7 + 5 = 15 when tutoring yesterday afternoon. Fortunately my GCSE student was equally exhausted, so he didn't mock me too much.

More depressing is the students' lack of numeracy skills - there have been some issues over how to calculate means and percentage increases... I have made a note to go over some of this basic maths for biologists before their exams, or they will be, to use the technical term, fucked.

Teachers in the UK have been frothing at the mouth (or switching off the television) at Jamie's Dream School, where the Rubber-Lipped TwatTM decides he wants to run a school for "kids wot the system's let down innit", or words to that effect.

On the one hand, it has been really good for non-teaching viewers to see what the little darlings can be like (I have some approaching that level of disruption, but they can all be counted on the fingers of one hand, and the moment they decide to channel Harlem, they'll be OUT!). On the other hand, I can't help looking over my shoulder in case Pob Michael Gove decides to replace us all with dodgy celebs. Would my "Physiology of Human Regulation and Reproduction" classes be more informative if Kinga from Big Brother taught them perhaps?!

For some really superb analysis, check out posts from The Behaviour Guru - Tom Bennett's descriptions of each episode have been some of the few things I have read aloud to Paul recently (Doctor Grumpy being another).

In other news, Jabba is in excellent health, and absolutely adores his palm tree. I think perhaps he's been listening to too much Jimmy Buffett.